DATE: Friday, May 4, 2007 | SECTION: HOME AND GARDEN
MAGIC FORMULA: SPECTACULAR CONTAINERS
ARE A NO-BRAINER IF YOU KEEP THREE
SIMPLE CONCEPTS IN MIND
By Margaret A. Haapoja/For the Duluth News Tribune

Thrill, spill and fill.
That's a formula for planting eye-catching combinations in containers.
Select a tall, colorful or exotic plant for the thrill. Add a vine or trailing plant to spill over the side and then fill with other compatible plants.

Deb Erickson, manager of Byrns' Greenhouse in Zim, recently learned about the formula at Ball Seed's Centennial Celebration at the company's headquarters in West Chicago, Ill.
Perfect candidates for the thrill are tall plants such as spikes, ornamental grasses, papyrus, large coleus and elephant ear. Erickson sometimes underplants them with shade-lovers like impatiens and tuberous begonias.

"You don't want too many diva in a pot because they will fight," Erickson says of the thrill plants.
Plants that spill over the edges of the container might be lysimachia, bacopa, Whispers' petunia, Vinca minor Illumination,' lamium, sweet potato vine and licorice plant.

For the fill, Erickson selects plants depending on whether the container is going to reside in the sun or the shade. Petunias, impatiens, osteospermum, fuchsias and standard coleus fit the bill.

LIVING EXPERIMENTS
Erickson encourages gardeners to experiment with container gardens. Think of combining complementary colors, different leaf shapes and various textures, she said.

Erickson begins with a light potting mix that contains peat, vermiculite, perlite, wood mulch, a wetting agent for moisture retention and a time-release fertilizer.

Instead of adding moisture crystals, Erickson prefers to line her containers with an inexpensive disposable diaper to retain moisture.
"The crystals can leave air pockets when they dry out if you miss a few waterings," she says, "and later you can tear the diaper off if you're reusing or composting the soil."
Erickson recommends using odd numbers of any plant for the best effect. She likes to combine cool colors such as purple or blue or warm colors such as orange and red in one container.
Erickson also tries to combine plants that require the same amount of water. She once mistakenly paired scaevola with double-pink petunias in a hanging basket, a bad combination because both are heavy drinkers. "The 12- to 14-inch hanging baskets need to be watered every day," she recalled.

To personalize her containers, Erickson often adds small statues, croquet balls, rocks or other accents. She also top-dresses them with pea gravel, colored aggregate or wood mulch.
"It helps the soil retain moisture, and it looks much more finished," she says, pointing to a gnome in a container. "This one looks like he's standing in his own garden."
Another option is to fill with sweet alyssum, violas or dianthus. "By the heat of summer they're gone, which is great because your other plants need that room," Erickson says. "And I love the alyssum because it gives you fragrance, and it gives another dimension to the pot."

Gardeners with limited space who want a low-maintenance container can try a cactus and succulent garden. For pots at the edge of a pond, use plants that don't mind wet feet. Among these are the new Baby Tut' papyrus, elephant ears, fiber optic grass, lysimachia, cannas, curly mint, Juncus effusus Spiralis' (corkscrew rush), sweet potato vine and Tahitian bridal veil.
Margaret A. Haapoja is a freelance writer and Master Gardener who lives south of Calumet. Reach her at homeandgarden@duluthnews.com